Category Archives: Pär Jönsson

Industrial collaborations – focus on faculty

This entry was posted on 2019-03-05 by Jenni Hollbrink.

In my last blog I discussed how we could collaborate with industry. I wish to continue on the same theme this time. However, now taking the perspective of a person that is working in industry. How can such a person be part of KTH?

There are two main ways, namely an affiliated faculty or an adjunct Professor.

Typically, what happens is that an individual researcher at a department has collaborated with someone in the industry for some time. The person in the industry enjoys giving lectures, supervising students and writing papers in collaboration with KTH researchers, etc. At this point the person discusses with the KTH contact and the closest manager if it would be possible to have a more official connection to KTH.

At this time I am usually contacted by a Department Head that wishes to know which of the two ways are most suitable. Here it is clear that most external people wish to have the title “Professor”. However, we need to make sure that they fulfil all requirements stipulated by KTH. The requirements for becoming an adjunct professor can be found on the KTH home page:

https://www.kth.se/en/samverkan/partnerskap/personrorlighet/adjungerade/adjungerade-professorer-brobyggare-mellan-kth-och-omvarlden-1.329822

Me, the Department Head and the KTH teacher that wish to establish the collaboration carefully go through the persons CV After that, Dekanus Katja Grillner makes a pre-evaluation of the persons CV to judge whether the person has the qualifications of becoming an affiliated faculty or an adjunct professor. Thereafter, the candidate can officially apply for the position. At this stage of the process, one of our ITM administrators, Helena Lundquist or Malin Bolin, will support the candidate and the department to establish and upload the required documents.

If a person becomes an affiliated faculty it opens up the possibilities to carry out more academic work as part of their work assignments. As mentioned before this may include writing papers on collaborations with KTH researchers and co-supervision of PhD students, which both represents activities that helps to boost a person’s CV. Thus, if the collaboration is successful and appreciated from both organisations, the person could apply for an adjunct professorship in the future.

As shown in the link given above, and adjunct professorship application will be evaluated by external experts as well as by Dekanus. If a person passes this evaluation it is most common to have the position for one day a week (20%), but up to a maximum of a 50% position.

We have seen an increase in the number of people that wish to work closer to us at KTH. This is very positive, since they bring their industrial experience into our KTH academic environment. This helps our students to better understand the industrial situation that most of them will work with in the future.

Finally, I wish to say that I hope that you had a fantastic winter break, “sportlov”.

Myself I took one day of to visit the historical places Uppsala and Österbybruk . At the latter place I picked up my son that had taken a one-week course in stone laying. My hope is that I finally get my drive way fixed this summer….

Pär Jönsson, Vice Dean

Collaboration with industry – a days experience in Avesta

This entry was posted on 2019-02-01 by Jenni Hollbrink.

Collaboration with industry is one of the important factors for a successful technical university. This can take place in so many ways as I experienced yesterday when I visited Outokumpu Stainless in Avesta. I had three meetings planned: 1) a discussion about how we could use slag as a replacement for lime in a neutralization process, 2) a discussion with an industrial PhD student, and 3) a visit to the plant to spot study the AOD reactor. Note, during the plant visit I proudly wore my safety jacket with a KTH logo on for the first time! My colleague Anders Tilliander came up with the idea. It turned out to be a great idea since I got many positive comments and people knew where I came from.

The first example on collaboration involves one of our PhD students, Leo Carlsson, who was on the same morning train as me. His research topic is machine learning big data related to metallurgical industry. The last two years he has spent on trying to model the energy consumption in an electric arc furnace, which is an important reactor in the circular economy since it uses recycled metallic scrap as a raw material. Leo’s results are promising but in order to better understand the reliability of the huge amount of input variables he uses, he decided to sit together with the operators during a day to learn more about input variables that they use to control the process. Thus, the purpose is of course to make sure that the theoretical model he has developed will be of use in the production. This close contact with the industry is important when introducing new concepts in production. I am sure he will be back many times before finishing his PhD!

Another example of how we can collaborate with industry is also from yesterday and connected to the visit in Avesta. In arecent VINNOVA project, KTH was granted a project to study how if it is possible to use vibration measurements to indirectly determine how much gas that is injected in to liquid steel. This is a challenging task and it includes deep knowledge on processes, measurement techniques, signal treatment as well as how this information can be coupled to machine learning theories. The project is led by Nils Andersson and Björn Glaser. They spent yesterday in Avesta to spot suitable places to mount the vibration measurement devices and are doing the same thing today at Uddeholm in Hagfors. The project is a collaboration with machine learning experts at Luleå university and measurement experts at SWERIM as well as a collaboration with a handful of Swedish steel companies. This is a typical example on how universities, an institute and several industrial partners can collaborate in studying industrial relevant projects.

A third example of how we can collaborate with industry is related to the PhD education. In one PhD course at the materials science and engineering department the focus is on production technology and how it is necessary to combine economical aspects to technical aspects in the working life to come up with sustainable and profitable solutions. The two PhD students Carrie Jonsson and Amanda Vickerfält also visited Outokumpu yesterday to study the electric arc furnace process in order to better understand the practical aspects before completing their project report.

My last example of how important it is with collaboration between KTH and industry is from having lunch at the company. I was amazed over how many people I greeted, which had been educated by KTH. They are our alumni and I can feel the connection by their comments:

Hi professor are you here to get some experienceof the “real” metallurgy?
Pär, do you have any good students we can hire?
Great to see so many KTH students in the plant today!
How many new students applied to materials design this year?

My reflections over the day when I was on the train back home were that this extremely good and frequent collaboration KTH, and especially ITM, has with the industry and society is ot the outmost importance. People talk about life-long learning but I would like to extend it to a life-long collaboration with us at ITM (KTH) and the industry!

Pär Jönsson, Vice Dean

Collaboration to Reach Excellence in Education, Research and Ranking

This entry was posted on 2018-11-09 by Peter Waites.

During November 6-7, eight universities from Japan, Korea, China, Canada,Taiwan Germany, France and Sweden met in Sendai in Japan to discuss the possibilities to collaborate to reach excellence in education and research. The event was arranged by Tohoku University who has an overall aim to reach a top 10 ranking in the fields of Spintronics, Environmental & Earth Science, Cosmic Physics, Machine Science, and Materials Science. Together with the Director of Studies Anders Eliasson I attended a workshop focusing on materials science, where collaborations within the areas of “Metallurgy”, “Materials Science” and “Materials Processing” were discussed. Each university was given one hour each to explain the education of BSc, MSc and PhD students. In addition, visits to laboratories and meeting with students took place the second day. Here it was clear that the equipment at Tohoku University is very modern and advanced.

It is clear that it is difficult to collaborate with other universities on a Bachelor level, with the exception from the University of British Colombia in Vancouver. They already have 30% foreign students on their Bachelor programs, which all are given in English. On a MSc level, it is clear that the simplest way to reach a fruitful collaboration is by students carrying out MSc theses at a partner university. However, it is possible to create double degree programs with some universities.

It is also clear that it seems quite easy to collaborate on a PhD level with most universities. For example, Tohoku University has received at least 1 student per year from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering KTH during the last 15 years. During this meeting it was clear from discussions with several faculty members that more KTH students are welcome to carry out research in their groups.

One peculiar reflection was that the French universities got complain from the French authorities that they were ranked very low in international rankings. Then, a number of institutes and universities recently merged into the University of Lyon, which in total has 140 000 students (Yes! You read it correctly!). In this way they anticipate that they fast will obtain a higher ranking. I have an innovative solution, namely that we merge all science universities in Sweden to create the Royal Nobel University of Science!

No, I am kidding! We really need to reconsider what is important for us at KTH and not only consider ranking. Our main impact is through our undergraduate and graduate students. We need to give them a suitable “toolbox” so that they can contribute to developing societies in an innovative and sustainable manner!

/ Pär Jönsson, Deputy Head of School

ITM in Mozambique – Science Outreach

This entry was posted on 2018-10-05 by Peter Waites.

This time I want to share an experience I had last week in Maputo, Mozambique. I had been invited to give the opening speech at the conference organised by Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM). The title of the presentation was Ideas How to Stimulate a Sustainable and Innovative Research Development at UEM.

My trip started with an experience that illustrates how small the world is. On my way home from my last working day before traveling to Maputo I ran in to Fredrik Lundell. As we discussed we realised that Lars Geschwind that works with Fredrik, will get 2 PhD students from Maputo. Then, I mailed Lars and got the information that the new students are part of a new program entitled Comparative Higher Education, Policy and Innovation Studies. In the end I could add this new happening to my talk. It would have been embarrassed if they would have asked me about Lars collaboration and I would not have known about it, especially since we are from the same school!

My talk focused on how research is done at KTH, impact, working environment as well as how to attract students to education and research. Here, I tried to give some examples from KTH where we for example use household waste as a raw material to produce both energy and bricks as well as how you can recycle cars and electronics. Specifically, focusing on important issues related to circular economy and sustainability and which are important to society as well as are attractive for potential students. Besides an audience from the academics from different countries, represents from embassies/financial institutions from Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands and Italy participated. After my opening lecture, there was especially a large interest for how we could use household waste (landfills) as raw materials also in Mozambique and other neighbouring African countries. Especially, SIDA shown an interest in future research projects in the area of landfill mining.

The technical outcome from my trip seems to be a serious attempt to write a SIDA proposal on the use of landfills to produce energy and building materials. Here, the KTH researcher Weihong Yang will be important but we expect the collaboration with researchers from the Department of Energy and the Department of Industrial Economy and Management. Another potential scientific outreach from KTH could be a project focusing on cleaning of water from metals such as Hg, Cd and Pb. I know that our colleague Gunno Renman at the ABE school is an expert in the field and I have contacted him regarding this topic.

Besides the engineering talks at the conference, I also listened to other talks in a wide range of areas: violence against women, traffic deaths, malnutrition of children, presence of heavy metals in food, lack of clean water, agricultural methods and biodiversity in nature. This definitely helped me to get another perspective on issues of importance for Mozambique.

As I was shown the neighbourhoods at the outskirts of Maputo I experienced the many temporary houses (“kåkstäder”). Then, I thought that it would be great if we could use the solid material that is left after combustion of household waste as an inexpensive building material for low-cost homes. I thought maybe it is even possible to use this solid waste material to 3D print houses in the future. Is it really possible to combine a fashionable high-tech method with a cheap rest product to influence the life of those in need…

/ Pär Jönsson, Deputy Head of School

Evaluation of research quality

This entry was posted on 2018-08-29 by Annika Lilja.

In the academic world all researchers work hard to discover new findings, which will lead to great improvements in the scientific world. The leadership at universities monitors the success of groups/department with respect to the research quality. At KTH, this has been done at research evaluations (RAE) in 2008 and 2012. It is not exactly clear when the next evaluation will be done, but a good guess is that it will take place in 2020.

Currently, I am in Helsinki to take part in a one week research evaluation of the materials science and metallurgy research at Aalto University, RAI2018. As a matter of fact I am also joined by our Head of School Jan Wikander, who has been invited to evaluate the mechanical engineering research at Aalto University. Overall, 45 scientist from all around the globe have been invited to this exercise. It is a very interesting experience that provides me and Jan with important input which we can share with the ITM researchers, so that they can be better prepared for a future evaluation at KTH.

One important thing with the evaluation is that each department should be compared to peers at other benchmark universities. Thus, there is not a focus on comparing department’s performances on a university level. This is very good since there exist different ways of publishing research results, having an impact on society, etc. So the focus should be on comparing how each department performs in comparison to similar departments elsewhere.

Aalto University is a fairly new university which in 2010 merged arts, business and engineering into one new school. What we have seen so far they have already been able to create new exciting collaborations. Maybe one interesting example is the production of textiles from forest-based raw material rest products that has been developed by engineers. Then, the art scientists have used these materials to produce fashion clothes that already have been shown on so called “cat walks”. Maybe later the business school will create business models on how these fashion clothes, produced based on recycled product, can be branded as a sustainable fashion!?

Overall, it seems like Aalto University has created an atmosphere which stimulates collaboration between different research groups and scientist. During the interviews it is clear that both PhD students and faculty thinks that laboratories have opened up so that basically everyone has access to all experimental equipment. Maybe something for us to think about…..

Pär Jönsson, Vice Head of School